NORTH YORKSHIRE communities hit by the foot and mouth crisis are to receive a "welcome boost to morale" from the Prince of Wales.

The Prince is to visit the county on Monday to show his support for those most affected by the outbreak, and to see how local people are working together to keep rural facilities and young entrepreneurs in the countryside.

Part of his visit will take him to the Thirsk area, where local farmer John Furness has helped to organise a meeting with farmers and business people in the village of Knayton.

Mr Furness, who is a North Yorkshire council member of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, said: "The Prince's visit will give a most welcome boost to morale at a time when those farmers who have had their stock culled have been involved in the lengthy cleaning and disinfecting process."

He said: "The Thirsk 'Blue Box' bio-security area increased the difficulties for arable farms during harvest and autumn work, and also caused heavy financial losses to the large number of pig farmers unable to move their stock.

"We are looking forward to discussing our plans for the future with the Prince of Wales."

Earlier in the visit, the Prince is due to strike a blow for country pubs when he launches the "Pub Is The Hub" guide as part of Business in the Community's rural action initiative.

The initiative is intended to combat a trend which has seen an estimated six rural pubs closing each week, and the new guide will be launched at the Craven Heifer pub at Stainforth, near Settle, which has a post office and shop at one end of the premises, helping it to remain a thriving part of the local community, despite foot and mouth's impact on tourism.

While in the Craven area, which was particularly badly hit by the epidemic, he will visit Skipton Auction Mart to speak to local farmers and other business people.

While in Settle he will launch the expansion across the whole of Yorkshire of a project for young business enterprise. The project started in the Yorkshire Dales in 1999.

Meanwhile, Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett, who was today leading a UK delegation at an international conference on foot and mouth, said there needed to be a debate on whether the disease should be eradicated.

The two-day conference in Brussels is being co-sponsored by the UK and Dutch Governments and brings together leading experts from across the world on both control of foot and mouth and its wider impact.

Ms Beckett will tell the conference about how the outbreak developed and how it was tackled.

But she will also urge delegates to consider a fundamental re-think of policies adopted internationally to manage the disease, and whether eradication - the basis of all policy - should be re-considered.

"I think one of the questions which should at least be put on the table is whether the whole basis of the international policy is right," she said.

"The basis of policy across the world, not just in the European Union, is if you have an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease it must be eradicated, it must be stamped out, because it has always been regarded as such a danger.

"Is the policy of eradication right? If it is, why is it, because what you then do flows from whether you are content to live with the disease or whether you are trying to get rid of it?"

She added: "What I hope to see is a very much more full and open public debate, in part touching on what happened here in the UK this year when we had this unprecedented experience, but mostly starting to think about what it teaches us for the future, not just in the United Kingdom or in the European Union but internationally."

Updated: 10:41 Wednesday, December 12, 2001